Add a refreshing and attractive side dish to your meal with spiral cucumber salad. It gives a juicy, crisp texture that goes well with an easy-to-make dressing made with 7 ingredients. Prepare this salad in just 15 minutes and pair it with a main meal like Rice Paper Dumplings, Crispy Dumpling Skirt, and Stir-Fried Shrimp Mei Fun.
All About Spiral Cucumber Salad Recipe
Making spiral cucumber salad is similar to my Super Easy Accordion Potatoes Recipe (A Viral TikTok Recipe!), which actually went viral on my Instagram. Don’t get intimidated by its appearance. It looks intricate, but making this spiral cut is quite easy with the help of chopsticks or bamboo skewers.
All you need are 4 cucumbers that are soaked in salt to draw out moisture. For the dressing, it is a mix of garlic clove slices, chopped Thai chili peppers, light soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar, sugar, chili oil, and sesame oil. Pour the dressing over the spiral cucumbers and serve it as a side dish with meat or vegetable main dishes.
You can make this salad in advance and store it in the fridge for up to 3 days. In fact, it is even better when the salad is refrigerated for 2 hours or more for a crispier and flavorful bite. If you love decorative food, I recommend the following fun recipes:
- Taro Snow Skin Mooncake With Cheese
- Hua Juan (Chinese Flower Rolls Or Scallion Roll)
- Steamed Piggy Buns With Custard Filling
- Super Easy Accordion Potatoes Recipe (A Viral TikTok Recipe!)
- Creamy Strawberry Sandwiches (3 Ingredients Only!)
- All-Natural Purple Sweet Potato Bun
Tips And Alternatives To Consider
- Cucumber: Any cucumber will do, such as mini cucumbers, regular cucumbers, or Persian or Lebanese cucumbers. As long as it can be cut easily and not too hard, you can use any type of cucumber.
- Salt: You will need salt to draw out moisture from the cucumber. The excess water from the cucumber is drained, leaving you with a crisper cucumber. I recommend rinsing the salted cucumbers to lessen the saltiness since the dressing has salty soy sauce already. You can use sea salt, kosher salt, or table salt.
- Sliced garlic: I chopped the garlic into thin slices. You can also mince it if you like. This adds garlicky, nutty, and pungent flavors to the dressing. It can be added raw or cooked. If using cooked garlic, try my crispy fried garlic recipe to learn how to make a jar of this.
- Thai chili pepper: I like spicy foods, so I incorporated Thai chili pepper or bird’s eye chili. You can use green or red chili peppers, crushed red pepper flakes, or cayenne peppers. If you don’t have whole chili peppers, swap 1 whole chili pepper with 1/4 tsp chili flakes. It is totally fine to remove this especially if you are not into spicy and hot.
- Light soy sauce: The dressing becomes salty and umami with light soy sauce. As an alternative, you can use regular soy sauce, dark soy sauce, tamari, liquid aminos, coconut aminos, or gluten-free soy sauce as alternatives.
- Chinese black vinegar: Vinegar pairs well with light soy sauce. For this dressing, I used something Asian – Chinese black vinegar. This adds a fruity, tangy, and slightly sweet taste. The color is dark and can be bought in Asian supermarkets or in the international section of grocery stores. You may find this as Chinkiang vinegar or Zhenjiang vinegar. Alternatively, you can replace this with balsamic vinegar, date vinegar, or red wine vinegar, but the taste won’t be the same.
- Sugar: A teaspoon of sugar complements the salty flavors of the dressing. Use any type of sugar, such as white sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, or coconut sugar.
- Chili oil: Add more spiciness with chili oil. You can buy these in Asian stores or in the international section of a local grocery store. If you have the time, I suggest making one yourself with my recipe, homemade chili oil.
- Sesame oil: Make it more Asian with nutty and earthy sesame oil. Its nutty taste is distinct and you can’t really find the same taste in other types of oil. However, you can substitute this with other types of oil if needed, such as olive oil or avocado oil.
- Optional ingredients: You can add more flavor and texture such as chopped red onions, green onions, and ginger slices. Give it a nice crunch with white or black sesame seeds.
Prepare These Ingredients And Kitchenware
What I love about salad recipes is that you don’t need heating equipment. Just prepare a knife and chopping board for chopping and a mixing bowl for making the dressing. Most importantly, get ready with chopsticks, bamboo skewers, or any similar item to these to help you cut the cucumbers.
The chopsticks are placed on each side of the cucumber as you slice. In this way, it does not cut all the way through. This is the key technique in making its spiral shape.
For the ingredients, here’s what you need:
- 4 cucumbers
- 1 tbsp of salt
- 10 garlic cloves (thinly sliced)
- 2 tbsp of Thai chili pepper
- 2 tbsp of light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp of Chinese black vinegar
- 1 tsp of sugar
- 1 tbsp of chili oil
- 1 tbsp of sesame oil
Instructions: How To Make Spiral Cucumber Salad
Slice the cucumbers, soak it in salt, and pour the dressing over it. To get a better picture of how I sliced the cucumbers, refer to my Instagram or TikTok tutorial video. Have this side dish ready in 15 minutes or less!
Remember to share your creations by tagging me @kitchenmisadventures. Did you make a variation of this? Share them in the comments section as well!
- Clean and cut the cucumbers by placing chopsticks on each side and cutting it up to the chopsticks. The chopsticks prevent the knife from cutting all the way through. Cut it into 1/4-inch wide slices and not too wide. You will need thinner slices to make it easier to open up.
- Flip the cucumber to the other side and cut it into diagonal slices while the chopsticks are still on each side. This should give you an accordion spiral cucumber when stretched.
- Sprinkle about a tablespoon of salt and spread it evenly onto the cucumbers. Let it sit in salt for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the excess water comes out.
- Drain the water from the marinated cucumber and transfer the cucumbers to a serving plate. While you can rinse off the salt from the cucumbers to lessen the saltiness, I typically skip rinsing since most of the salt has already been removed during the draining process.
- Chop the ingredients, such as garlic cloves and Thai chili peppers.
- Prepare the dressing in a bowl. In a bowl, mix garlic clove slices, chopped Thai chili pepper, light soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar, sugar, chili oil, and sesame oil.
- Stir well and pour the dressing over the cucumbers.
- Refrigerate for 2 hours or even overnight for a crisp, refreshing, and appetizing salad! Make sure to store it in an airtight container to preserve its texture and flavor.
Do you love salad recipes? Try these salads as well: Spicy Chinese Pig Ears Salad and Hot & Crispy Bitter Melon Salad.
Spiral Cucumber Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 cucumbers
- 1 tbsp of salt
- 10 garlic cloves thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp of Thai chili pepper
- 2 tbsp of light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp of Chinese black vinegar
- 1 tsp of sugar
- 1 tbsp of chili oil
- 1 tbsp of sesame oil
Instructions
- Clean and cut the cucumbers by placing chopsticks on each side and cutting it up to the chopsticks. The chopsticks prevent the knife from cutting all the way through. Cut it into 1/4-inch wide slices and not too wide. You will need thinner slices to make it easier to open up.
- Flip the cucumber to the other side and cut it into diagonal slices while the chopsticks are still on each side. This should give you an accordion spiral cucumber when stretched.
- Sprinkle about a tablespoon of salt and spread it evenly onto the cucumbers. Let it sit in salt for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the excess water comes out.
- Drain the water from the marinated cucumber and transfer the cucumbers to a serving plate. While you can rinse off the salt from the cucumbers to lessen the saltiness, I typically skip rinsing since most of the salt has already been removed during the draining process.
- Chop the ingredients, such as garlic cloves and Thai chili peppers.
- Prepare the dressing in a bowl. In a bowl, mix garlic clove slices, chopped Thai chili pepper, light soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar, sugar, chili oil, and sesame oil.
- Stir well and pour the dressing over the cucumbers.
- Refrigerate for 2 hours or even overnight for a crisp, refreshing, and appetizing salad! Make sure to store it in an airtight container to preserve its texture and flavor.
